Wilhelm Hennis' Politische Wissenschaft. Fragestellungen und Diagnosen by Andreas Anter (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews 275 not willing to yield to the gloomy image of a social which is completely conceived of as an entirely secular arrangement; indeed, 'neither religion nor society can survive indefinitely without some regeneration of the creative impulse of the sacred and the social' (p. 31). In his concluding remarks, looking at the steady 'rise of low-intensity religion (...) as a death-work signalling' (p. 208) that the passive citizen and modern spirituality are two sides of the very same coin, Turner warns over the risk of 'the end of the social' brought about by 'globalization in the shape of commercialization and commodification' (pp. 296-97), reminding us that 'which binds people together into powerful, typically emotional groups, are religious forces' (p. 2%). Thus, Dur kheim's lesson still seems to be valid. Dr Antonella Ratti Luiss University, Rome Andreas Anter (ed.), Wilhelm Hennis' Politische Wissenschaft. Fragestellungen und Diag nosen (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), xiii + pp. 369. ISBN 978-3-16-152235-2. €59.00. Wilhelm Hennis, who died shortly before his ninetieth birthday, has an enduring reputation for being a real 'outsider', but also the reputation for being extraordi narily concerned about his students. In 1988,43 scholars contributed to a 'Festschrift' in homage to Hennis on his 65th birthday (Maier et al. 1988). Twenty-five years later, a smaller but no less significant 'Festschrift' has been published under the editorship of Andreas Anter. At half the size of the earlier collection, Wilhelm Hennis' Politische Wissenschaft is still a powerful homage to Hennis as well as another recognition of his role as a 'lone wolf, an 'odd man' and as an 'outsider7.1 There are seventeen articles, plus a preface, a full Hennis bibliography, and a lengthy and informative interview conducted by his biographer Stephan Schalk. The articles are divided into three sec tions: on political science and political theory; on governing in the modern state; and on the history of political ideas. The articles focus on many of Hennis' political and scholarly interests; on Germany's political parties, the problems with German higher education, and with public opinion and even on some international constitutional court decisions.2 All of the essays would be interesting to anyone concerned with modern political issues; I will focus on those which should be of particular interest to Weber scholars. Hennis was in his mid-sixties when his first book on Weber, Max Webers Fragestel lung, appeared in 1987. However, it would be a mistake to believe that Hennis began to study Weber late in his life because his own testimony indicates a life-long interest in Weber. In a 1998 autobiographical lecture entitled 'Politikwissenschaft als Beruf', 1. Pages viii, 144, 294. Unless otherwise indicated, all citations are to this volume. 2. The articles by Peter Graf Kielmannsegg and Reinhard Mehring focus on Hennis' retrieval of classical political theory; the one by Tine Stein examines Hennis' understanding of democracy and democratic politics; each of the ones by Andreas Anter and Christian Starck investigate Hennis' thoughts on constitutions and legiti macy; and the one by Rainer Wahl discusses the impact of three major constitutional cases on Hennis' political thinking.© Max Weber Studies 2013. 276 Max Weber Studies Hennis recalled that close to the end of World War Two he 'wanted to read every thing by and about Max Weber' and he started with Jaspe/s 1932 book Max Weber. Deutsches Wesen im Politischen Denken, im Forschen und Philosophieren (Hennis 1999: 399). Hennis noted at the beginning of Max Webers Fragestellung that Jaspers' book exerted immense influence on him (Hennis 1987: III). Jaspers emphasized the impor tance of Weber's political thinking and was accordingly unconventional—a point of view that Hennis himself seems to have adopted. Hennis stated that from that time, Weber continuously 'accompanied' him in his political thinking. For him, Weber's biggest strength was his ability to diagnose political problems and Hennis believed that the best example of this was Weber's 1918 'Parlament und Regierung im neuge ordneten Deutschland' (Hennis 1999:401). In one of the two English contributions Lawrence Scaff concentrates on political issues. This is fitting as he wrote Fleeing the Iron Cage: Culture, Politics, and...